A gentle sleep-in came to a dramatic end for a Washington couple when a badly beaten woman hammered on their door, claiming she had escaped a kidnapper.
Gary and Robin Marcello were still asleep when the 27-year-old woman arrived at the door of their Gig Harbor home last month, barefoot and bleeding.
Newly released bodycam footage shows the moment first responders arrived at the home and helped the injured woman to a nearby ambulance before approaching the attacker's home.
“Gary brought her inside and closed the door to protect us for a moment,” Robin said.
“And she kept saying, 'He's going to kill me.' He's going to kill me.”
Paramedics helped the badly beaten kidnap victim from her rescuers' home
Gary and Robin Marcello were still asleep when the 27-year-old woman arrived at the door of their home in Gig Harbor, Washington state, barefoot and bleeding.
First responders tried to figure out what happened to the young woman
'There was so much blood, I couldn't really tell where exactly it came from.
“It came from her head and her ears.”
Their peace was shattered when their doorbell started ringing incessantly and Gary went to the door.
“When I came out, there was no one here,” he said Kiro7.
“And I walked out and looked to my left and there was a young lady standing there.
“She turned around and her face was covered in blood.
“And it was 'go inside.' We brought her in. My wife took it from there.”
The woman told them she had run away from the house a quarter mile away when the couple called 911.
“It was clear she was bleeding from her head and her ear and I couldn't tell exactly where she had been hit,” said Robin, who has first aid training.
“But when I tried to hold her and move her because she started to slump forward, it was painful for her to hold her arms, to hold her.
“And then she went into shock and fell to the ground.”
Robin Marcello, who used her own first aid training to help the woman, watched from the front door as she was taken to hospital from her home
The woman had run barefoot a quarter mile to the couple's home in Gig Harbor after escaping from her captor's nearby home.
The barely conscious woman was able to tell her rescuers where she was being held captive
Gig Harbor Police Chief Kelly Busey said the woman was kidnapped days earlier and held captive by 66-year-old David Paul Ruffier.
“As she tried to flee the house, he tried to stop her from doing so,” he added.
“And he hit her several times with a piece of furniture, a chair leg or something like that.
“She was seriously injured, had cuts to her head and was panicking.”
The video shows paramedics carrying the injured woman from Marcello's ambulance crew and trying to gather some details of the attack as she is carried to an ambulance.
“Can you tell me who did this to you?” one asks.
'Do not you know? Was it a family member? Do you live close to here? Where do you live?
'We want to talk to this man. Can you tell me how to find him?'
The woman raised a finger to point to her attacker's house.
'Which way? Like that,” the paramedic confirmed.
The video then shows police arriving at Ruffier's home before banging on the door.
“Do you see the drops of blood?” someone remarks grimly: “They're not ours.”
Inside, they found Ruffier dead from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, and the house was filled with smoke and the smell of chemicals.
Police found blood on the porch of David Ruffier's home when they arrived moments later
Inside, they discovered that Ruffier had tried to set the house on fire before shooting himself
“It's difficult because the victim in this case doesn't really have a lot of memories, she doesn't even remember where she met the man or how long she was at this location, that gets a little difficult,” Chief Busey said. .
The woman was later released from hospital after treatment for her injuries.
“It kind of shocks you that you didn't know this was going on, you didn't know that person was capable of this and we're just here to live our lives,” Gary told KING.
“We hope that everyone who has something like this happen to them does the same,” Robin added.